Encampment evictions cause 'tremendous harm,' defy human rights, say experts

Last week, Charlottetown city crews used bulldozers and other equipment to tear down tents at Charlottetown's encampment site and the last two remaining people who had been staying there were forced off the property.

But a few days later, the Ontario Superior Court blocked the Region of Waterloo from demolishing an encampment in Kitchener, Ont., saying it would infringe on the constitutional rights of people living there because there are not enough shelter beds in the city.

Kaitlin Schwan, a senior researcher at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, was an expert witness in the case.

She told Island Morning's Mitch Cormier the Waterloo ruling sets a precedent which may empower encampment residents and their advocates to challenge municipal policies.

"In Ontario, this is really a critical first step for emphasizing that the human rights of people who are unhoused supersedes the enforcement of bylaws when it comes to encampments," she said.

Schwan said municipal safety concerns such as fire hazards are not adequate reasons for evictions.

"You can't use that as a basis to evict an encampment under human rights law," she said.

"In international human rights law and domestic human rights law, it's the obligation of governments to ensure that people have safe, livable conditions and encampments, that they can heat spaces, that they can access water." 

The Charlottetown emergency shelter offers overnight beds for people experiencing homelessness, but Schwan said it's not just the availability of beds that's important.

"Are these beds accessible?... It doesn't help you if you have a disability or the shelter requires that you abstain from substance use, for example... it's not just the number of beds, but it's also the accessibility and the appropriateness of shelter beds." 

Safety concerns

Jeff Karabanow, a professor at Dalhousie University's School of Social Work, is a homelessness researcher who has done extensive work with people living in encampments in Halifax.

"What's come to light is that for the vast majority, staying where they are is probably the safest space for them," he said.

Karabanow said many encampment residents have nowhere else to go.

"So the fact of kind of moving in and just dismantling the only stuff that people have and then having no alternative to offer it, I think, is deeply problematic," he said.

People living outdoors in extreme weather is alarming, however, and one of the reasons he said advocates in Halifax are "pushing for better, more dignified accommodation than simply allowing people to sleep outside or putting them in very overcrowded and dangerous spaces like shelters."

Karabanow also said it's important that people experiencing homelessness and living in encampments are included in discussions about solutions.

'Exposed to violence'

Schwan too stressed the dangers people face when they are forced to leave encampments, adding that evictions don't solve the problem — they just move the problem.

"Encampment evictions result in tremendous harm for people. Like people lose property, lose resources or are exposed to violence.... In most cases it reduces people's ability to survive because it destroys their property — they lose ID, experience other kinds of traumas," she said.

Officials in Charlottetown are encouraging people experiencing homelessness to stay at the province's mobile housing units on Park Street.

Housing Minister Matthew MacKay has said the government hopes to have a 24/7 shelter in place by next winter.